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Their selection includes new releases, bestsellers, and books that are out of print. For more information, please visit their website at bookieschicago.com. You can also find them on Facebook by searching Bookies Chicago or call them at 773-239-1110. Welcome to Week 9 of The Coach Show.
On this episode, head coach Mike Feminist of St. Xavier Football joins Mike Rankin and Christine Manica to discuss the Cougars' 30-28 victory over conference rival, University of St. Francis. The crew talks special teams value, quarterback play, and the best Halloween candy.
Thanks for tuning in, and we hope you enjoy. Welcome into WXAV 88.3 FM Chicago on The Coach's Show live here at St. Xavier University. Mike Rankin with you as well as Christine Manica, and we are joined, as always, by head coach of St.
Xavier Football, Mike Feminist. Coach, thank you, as always, for jumping on. Obviously, a pleasure to have you every week, and for you to take the time, we really appreciate it. But before we get into the game, last Saturday, it was a battle, 30-28.
You come away victorious against a conference rival, but like I said, before we get into that, I just have to ask you how you spent your Halloween with your family. What was your favorite candy? Do you have anything special going on? Well, I actually had to play Mr.
Mom here for the last few days because my wife was at her work convention since Sunday in Boston. And actually, she's up in the yard right now. She's on her way down. But I was kind of running around a little ragged, trying to be a football coach and doing the double parent thing for the last couple days.
But we ended up, my mother and my sister ended up taking care of my daughters and getting them out for trick-or-treating, and Dad got there for the post-trick-or-treating candy, which was good. Reese's Peanut Butter Cupboard is still my favorite. Oh, did you dress up it all this Halloween? No, I didn't.
I usually do. But again, I've got to blame it all on my wife because things got a little bit crazy for me trying to run a household and coach a football team, and I didn't end up getting a costume this year, which is kind of rare for me. And I'm glad you had a good Halloween. Everyone, from what I'm hearing, had a good Halloween.
But now let's get back to talking what happened with St. Francis last Saturday. Talk about a battle. It was a fight till the end for sure.
You guys ended up pulling out the win. But, you know, you were down 14-0 in the start of the game. What was the most frustrating part for you as a coach? Well, that was the most frustrating part.
For the second week in a row now, we put ourselves on a halt in the first quarter, going down two scores. And I guess that's probably the most frustrating part. On the flip side, you know, from the positive, we've come back now two weeks in a row and I think scored the next 28 points for each of the last couple weeks. And yet, you know, St.
Francis didn't quit. They actually had a great third quarter and then we really had to pull out in the fourth quarter. But none of that was surprising because I think we talked last week about the rivalry. It's been lopsided from the standpoint of the one loss record.
But the vast majority of those games have been a touchdown or less game. You know, they give us everything they got. A lot of their guys know a lot of our guys. They play each other, play with each other in high school.
And, you know, it's a great area of rivalry. So I'm just always happy to get it over with because I certainly mix emotions every time we play them with all the people I know there. And lo and behold, we get a victory and we move on to the next one. You know, I think what added to the rivalry was the fact that you both were playing for the top MSFA spot.
Did your team or did you think of this like a playoff game? Well, yeah, I mean, we've been talking for a while now. We have to take care of business and take care of the opponent that's at hand. But, you know, I've pulled in for four or five weeks now.
We've kind of been stuck at number 10 for a while. But, you know, I know exactly who's playing who in the next couple of weeks in the other conferences. So, you know, I've told our guys for a month now, you keep winning, you're going to host a first round playoff game in that first week. And I still believe that.
There's a lot of games that will be played between this week, number five, number nine. So one of those guys is going to lose. And there's a lot of games between top 10, top 15 teams that someone's got to lose. And if we just keep winning, we'll be in that, I guess, precious pop eight situation, which guarantees a home game.
So that's our focus right now is to concentrate on the next one. And now we're down to two. And if we get these two, we'll be exactly where we want to be in three weeks. Two games left in the regular season.
It's hard to believe already. But St. Xavier's had a lot of success entering in with a chance to go 9-1 if you win out. And, well, what was important to me when I was keeping track of the game last week is we saw my guy blow back and he was healthy.
How much of an impact is he to the run game? And how does that help Alex Martinez kind of settle in knowing that he has a safety blanket with that run game? Well, it's big. Whenever you lose, you're starting running back.
You don't have him. It's really no different than any other position. It makes you thinner in other areas. And when Mike was out, it puts more pressure on Jamari Watson.
And he saw Hemp Hills where Mike's back up there. And then, yeah, in the running game, if you've got a solid running game, it takes a little bit of pressure off the quarterback. But Mike's having a really good senior year. And he's not 100% healthy.
He's going to have to deal with a wrist injury for hopefully the next six weeks. But he's an integral part of what we're doing offensively. And when he's going good, it certainly makes things a lot better for everybody else. How about on the defensive side of the ball?
I mean, they were a major reason why your team stayed in the ball game. A major influence as to why St. David's for 17-9 answered in the second quarter. A couple turnovers there late.
And, of course, late in the game, we had that big block on the special teams unit by a couple guys on the defensive side of the ball. What did you see and what was the game plan defensively to attack a new quarterback over at St. Francis? Well, I was really proud of our defense on Saturday.
And they play well all year. They really have. And they kind of set the tone for us in every game. But I thought particularly DJ Joe had a phenomenal game.
Derek Hosselton, again, has probably been our most consistent defensive player all year. And a guy I want to mention is Joe Cassenza. You know, Josh Hediger, who, you know, when he's healthy, he just came back a couple weeks ago. Joe, he's probably our most talented defensive player in Josh Hediger, too unsportsmanlike that cost him a game.
So we lost Josh very early in the second quarter. And Joe Cassenza, he's a guy that just about a year ago got a metal rod put in his back. You know, this is a kid that I frankly built in his parents. I don't think he should ever play football again.
And, you know, Joe's a hard-headed kid. He got cleared by the doctors to play. And he's been a very valuable special teams player for us this year. But, you know, he's Josh's backup.
And he came in and just did a phenomenal job. And, again, when you get injuries, it's like a domino effect. Because now Joe's on all your special teams. And now he's got to fill in and play every down on defense.
And to ask a kid to do that after what he's been through from a health standpoint, I just got a ton of respect for him. And he was definitely a sore puppy on Sunday. I mean, you took my next question out of my mouth with Josh Hediger. He was ejected.
And he was the first Cougar to be ejected this season. And, you know, it's about adjusting and having that adversity, which is what you've been talking about from the beginning. And that's why you warned your team saying, hey, there's going to be groan pains. Like, you are going to face a lot of adversity this season.
Yep. And, you know, as much as I was disappointed in Josh the day of the game, you know, I think nobody was more disappointed than him. And, you know, he knows what he did was wrong. Football is a very emotional sport on a lot of different levels.
And, you know, Josh knows he made a mistake. He definitely made a mistake. He's got to suffer the consequences. And the consequences, he can't play this Saturday, you know, which is obviously another huge game for us.
But a lot of times in life, there's learning experiences. This is one not only for Josh but for the rest of our team. You know, you've got to know when to back off and you've got to know when to be really smart. You know, because the thing that you can't control is the consistency or inconsistency every week, you know, from the officials.
Because every guy is going to call things a little bit different, you know. And what I preach to our guys is I said don't make an assumption that they're not going to call something. You know, you've got to play smart. You've got to play smart every now because it can unfortunately come back to budget.
I want to go back to something that you said, and that was a great question, Christine, related to just making adjustments on the fly. And that goes back to the recruiting process, right? We talked about it a little bit last week related to the depth. And I feel like every player, and I'm speaking in absolute here, but it could be true that every player who stepped into their role when they needed to have done exactly what you were looking for for them to do.
Now, is that related to culture established by the coaching staff and then bought in by these players? Oh, I think so. We talk about it all the time. We talk about it at every team meeting on Monday that we're going to need you guys.
We're going to need all of you. And, you know, if you're the number two, you're one play away from being the number one and being extremely important. And then, by the way, if you're the number three, don't be thinking, okay, well, I'm the number three, so I don't have to worry about it because guess what? You're one play away from being the number two, and then all of a sudden you're the number one.
And that has happened. You know, I counted. We had eight guys on Saturday that were not even dressed on Saturday that played the Marion game, you know, in week one. So that's our sport.
There's going to be injuries. There's going to be stuff that happens. And, you know, we knew two years ago that we really had to improve our overall talent and speed level, not only from our starters, but from a depth standpoint. And now it's really – everybody's seeing that.
It's coming to fruition now. We do need everybody. They've all pitched in. And we're certainly going to need it going forward.
And besides what everyone got from Josh Edgar's mistakes, as you mentioned, what else can you take away from the game on Saturday? Well, the one thing I was really happy with, I told you, we fell behind early, and then we took the lead. And, again, to their credit, they didn't fold. You know, they came back strong in the third quarter, took the lead again on us, and we could fold it and didn't and came back and won football.
We've now won three close football games this year, I think a four-pointer, a five-pointer, and a two-pointer. So from that standpoint, you know, I told our guys last week, you know, we've got to be able to win football games in every way possible. You know, if we're fortunate enough to jump on a team early, you've got to bury them, you know, and leave no doubt. And yet, you know, don't be surprised.
If you're in a dogfight, you know, you've got to be really disciplined in that fourth quarter, and there's got to be a belief system in you that somehow, some way, you're going to win a football game. And on Saturday, I thought, you know, Danny Sirocco's playing that field goal block was absolutely huge. You know, and we pulled the guys going into the game that we thought our kicking game was better than theirs. You know, Abdul Mahdi has had a really good career for us, and he made two big field goals for us in the game, did a good job on kickoffs.
And then, lo and behold, St. Francis had been struggling in the kicking department all year. I think their kicker was 3 of 12 or 3 of 13 going into our game. So when that opportunity took place in the fourth quarter for them to win it, you know, we want to put as much pressure on him as possible.
So I know the effort that our guys are going to give, but, you know, for Danny to come and make that play, it was just a huge force. That's a big time. That was a big time play. Totally shifts the momentum of the game.
You keep that two-point lead, and you're able to run out the clock there in the fourth quarter eventually. But that's something, I guess, that we don't look at necessarily so much when it comes to football. It's a unit that's often overlooked, and that's the special teams. And not only Abdul Mahdi and his value, but how about Joe Bailey?
His ability to flip the field, pinning guys deep, balls all game long. And we really had to be smart about where we were kicking it, how we were kicking it, motioning some guys to get more coverage, where the ball's kicked. And then Joe did a great job of directionally kicking to put ourselves in a great spot to make tackles. But he was fantastic.
And then the last one when they were, you know, there's only 11 seconds left. Their only chance of winning the game was to block the punt. You know, and we just told Joe, as soon as we get the ball, get rid of it. You know, that's what he had to do, and they put a ton of pressure on him.
But, you know, we protected well enough. He got rid of it, and the game's over. Calendar's flipping to November now. There's two games left, and we're joined by head coach of St.
Xavier Football. Mike Fennanis here on WXAV. Well, I think I'm looking for a little bit more consistency. You know, I thought we kind of shot ourselves in the foot the last two or three weeks.
I thought early in the season we were playing really well. We were kind of clicking on all cylinders, and yet it seems like in the last few weeks we've been stuck in the mud a little bit, but we haven't. We haven't seen a lot of those explosive plays that we had done earlier in the year. And sometimes, you know, you've got to give the other team credit and the other coaching staff credit.
But I would like to see a little bit more consistency, you know, specifically in the running game. You know, we're going to throw the ball the majority of the time. You know, that's our offense. But you still have to be a threat in the running game.
We know we're working with, again, young guys up front. We understand that. You know, you guys are veterans, and you've got to play like veterans. So I'm looking for a little bit more consistency there.
We had three or four big play opportunities on Saturday. The first one on our sideline, Alex, underthrew it slightly. And then, you know, we had three other times where Nick Szyzewski, you know, flew by a guy, and then we just overthrew him by a yard or two on each one. So those are things that we ended up getting away with on Saturday.
But when, you know, come this Saturday or the following Saturday or playoff time, when you have an opportunity to hit a big play, you've really got to take advantage of that. And we certainly didn't do that on Saturday. Do you think that communication is a big factor with handling the offensive line and when it comes to calling out plays? Oh, it sure is.
And, you know, the thing, again, talking about your opponent, everybody knows now that we're young on the offensive line. So you're getting a lot of, you know, five- and six-man blitzes. You're getting a ton of line stunts. It's, you know, it's stuff that the opposing team is going to say, okay, you know, we can't be able to stop you playing vanilla.
We know you're young up front, so we're going to throw you haymakers. And that does put a lot of pressure on an offensive line when, you know, teams are rushing five, six guys just by every down, and they're also running twists and stunts and everything. And so it's just, you know, you've got to watch the film, you've got to absorb it, and you've got to practice it because I don't see it changing in the next couple weeks. I think that's, you know, that's the recipe that opponents, you know, are going to do to think they can beat us.
What is something that the offensive line has been working on in order for them to attack first and to be the first ones to put points on the board? Well, you know, I don't want to necessarily use the word attack because from an offensive standpoint, against a defense that is blitzing you a lot, there are different protection schemes that you have, you know, to combat some things. But there's also, you know, the quarterback and receivers actually are helping in a lot of situations because you have hot reads. If they're blitzing one or more guys that you have to block, you've got to get rid of the ball.
And so it's not all on the offensive line. You know, the quarterback, there's a built-in hot receiver that's responsible to get himself open quick, and the quarterback's got to deliver it. So it's not just all on the offensive line. It's everybody kind of working in sync, you know.
And then every play, you've got to build a guy like that. So it really goes back to it's just repetition. In practice, it's repetition, watching the film and being ready to, you know, you've got to be able to play against anything that's going on at you. How would you evaluate Alex Martinez's playing time to this point since the Hunterford injury?
I think overall, Alex has been really good. You know, I don't think Saturday was his best game. You know, I think he played a solid game. But the one interception, the first one, the kid just made a ridiculous play.
You've got to give him all the credit in the world. He made a great play on that. Alex had those, you know, the three balls he overthrew that could have been home runs. He had the underthrown one.
The one that I was most disappointed was we had a fourth and one, and we were in a power formation. And, you know, Alex made a mistake on the cadence. You know, and that kind of jumbled the whole play. And Alex was the first one to admit it.
That's the beauty of both Alex and Justin is that, you know, when they make a mistake, they went up to it right away. So, but those are things as a quarterback. Can you expect anybody to be perfect? No.
But certainly, you know, all the eyes are on him because everything starts with the quarterback. Alex is going to be fine. I think he's, you know, he's a quick learner. Just like Justin.
Austin, he knows his mistakes from Saturday, and, you know, I have no doubt he's going to play a great game on Saturday. Last one for me, Coach, and I'll let Christine take the last. So you mentioned something a little bit prior. You talk about your veterans at this point of the season and related to discipline.
You know, you can get away with some of the mistakes. And physical mistakes are going to happen, of course, but you just alluded to a mental mistake that happens. Do you have a shorter leash when it comes to this point of the season now where you're going to get on guys more so than you maybe did at the beginning? I don't know.
I usually have a pretty short leash when it comes to it. I agree. You know, I fully get the physical mistakes. I have no problem with physical mistakes, but the mental mistakes or an unsportsmanlike kind of that, conduct ourselves on the field, and, you know, when the mental mistakes are made, they're going to hear from you.
And then, finally, Coach, it is Senior Day this coming weekend. What is something that you're going to miss about this particular group of seniors? Well, every year is something different. This is, I think, number 19 for me.
You know, sometimes it's not so much the group, per se, because everybody's got a different personality, and we certainly have some interesting personalities among this class. You know, guys like Jesse Gonzalez and Rudy Antunar are two guys that, you know, I certainly will never forget. They're really good kids, but they'll test you. They'll test you, and they love to test you.
And yet they make me laugh every day at practice. I can probably go down the line. You know, they're just a really good group of kids. You know, we had – I'm really happy for – as disappointed as it was for our senior class last year that, you know, we had our first losing season in 17 years or whatever it was.
I'm really happy that these guys that went through last year's season are going to have a chance to make their senior year special. And they started out their careers – a lot of these guys were freshmen in 2014 when we made the run to the semifinals and lost to Southern Oregon and won the national championship that year. A lot of these guys were also part of – in 2015 when, you know, we went 7-3, we had an ordinary regular season, and we almost took out the number one team in the country. And they went, you know, whatever we went.
I don't know how far the morning sight is, but it was a nine-hour bus ride and, you know, it was the 75-74 overtime game. So these guys have been a part of some really, really big games in our program's history. And, you know, I want nothing more for them than to, you know, win another conference championship, get to the playoffs, and make a run for a national championship. Well, Coach, we're hoping that there are many big games on the slate left for this season.
One more regular season home game left on the slate, and that's this Saturday, November 4th at 1 o'clock against all that Nazarene University. We hope you're there. Coach, thank you for taking the time. Thank you.
We're going to take a break. When we come back, we'll recap the show. This is WXAV and Coach's Show. They're playing their ninth game, but I think this is week 10, including the Bible.
Whatever, we lost count because we're already at this deep end of the season, and Head Coach Mike Femmes was able to join us this week, and it's always a pleasure to talk to him. Did you learn anything new speaking to him this week after speaking with him throughout the season? Because, I mean, I didn't really take him as a really intense guy. Yeah.
I say that's sarcastic. I mean, I'm going to say I didn't know that he liked to dress up for Halloween every year, so that was kind of fun. By the way, Mike, what did you dress up for Halloween? I was Waldo.
Really? Yeah, very original, I know. No, I like it. Oh, thanks.
I heard you had a good time on Halloween. I did. I was an alien. Ooh.
Yeah, not illegal. I had a couple questions. Like, an illegal alien? I'm like, no, no, no, the one from outer space.
No, that's good stuff. Yeah, it's always fun because I know you were telling me before off the air that you were hanging out with little kids, and that's what Halloween's all about. Oh, yeah. It's getting in the spirit with around little kids, but these guys are grown men.
These are big guys on the field coming up, and they're looking to go 4-0 in conference, and it's just such a flip of the script from last season to this season, and it's been so enjoyable to watch this group, and we were talking about specifically with the offense, and we went into it a little bit with Coach Femme, but looking at it, really going back since the Taylor University game, which they won 24-20, and that was when Hunterford was still playing. Since Hunterford's injury, I mean, the offense hasn't, like, here's a double negative, hasn't not been putting up points, but games have been close, and they fall behind early, especially against St. Ambrose and St. Francis the last two weeks.
I mean, what are you looking to see against Olivet this week? Because I'm specifically going to watch this offense. Yeah, I was going to say the same, like, bring up more points for sure, because looking at Olivet's history with St. Xavier, we've beaten them since, what, 2005, if I'm understanding that correctly, and we've always put up big numbers against them, so I'm expecting that this weekend coming from the offense, and last Saturday against St.
Francis on that game was way too close to comfort for me, personally. It was a barn burner, even though it was freezing outside, so it was a nail-biter, is what Sean would say, because it's too cold for it to be a barn burner. But I said, all right, fine, nail-biter. Yeah, no, Christine, you made a good point.
That's another close game that these Cougars are involved in. They beat Marion by five, they beat Taylor by four, and they just beat St. Francis, University of St. Francis by two.
I mean, these are of the, I can't do math, seven, eight games that they've been in, three to eight have been close. I mean, that has to be good, I mean, moving forward, so they'll have an opportunity to know what that feeling is if, you know, you get far into the playoffs, hopefully. Right, and then, I mean, with Saturday, it was very sloppy from the start, just very sloppy on the offensive side, and the defense, of course, was there to pick them back up, and they got the majority of the points for the Cougars, so it just shows what the defense can do and what we've been raving about probably since day one. I can't talk today.
I feel you, I feel you. It's been a long one. It's been a long season. It's been a grind, but we're almost to the end, and this St.
Xavier Cougar team not looking to finish in early November. Hopefully, a playoff run is on the horizon. They have a 7-1 record, so if you can finish strong with at least last two weeks, we may see a playoff game here at Bruce R.D. You know, I'm really looking forward to a great game and a great showing between both of these teams, and plus, it's senior day.
You know, you've got to have fun, and you've got to give one out there for the seniors, especially since it is going to be the last regular season game at home. It's going to be a special one, so I hope you're with us at Bruce R.D. Memorial Field here at St. Xavier University.
Pre-game show, if you can't make, it begins at 12.45 p.m. Sponsored by Bookies, so thank you all who have been tuning in all season long. And kickoff is schedule 4-1 against Olivet Nazarene. Boogers looking to improve to 8-1 on the season.
You can listen to that ballgame here on WXAV.com or 88.3 FM if you're in the area. One more thank you to Head Coach Mike Feminist for joining the show, as well as Peter Creighton, our boss, for allowing this production to be put together, and for Christine Manica. My name is Mike Rankin. We will talk to you on Saturday.
Thank you very much for listening to this WXAV 88.3 FM podcast. Be sure to visit our website, WXAV.com, for more information on your escape from ordinary radio.